Spent CFLs may be polluting the environment silently and causing a toxic hazard for kabadiwalas who handle such discarded bulbs.

Despite a huge spike in the demand (about 30% in the last five years) for these energy-saving lamps, a recent survey by NGO Toxics Link has found a number of ecological concerns with the management of these lamps. One of them is that they are not recycled safely; the mercury-laden glass invariably ends up in the municipal solid waste. Also, there is no set standard in India on the amount of mercury that should be used in a bulb.